• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Safety Risk .net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE RESOURCES
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • PSYCHOLOGY OF SAFETY & RISK
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Covid-19
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Covid-19 Returning to Work Inductions, Transitioning, Safety Start Up and Re Entry Plans
    • Covid-19 Work from Home Safety Checklists and Risk Assessments
    • The Hierarchy of Control and Covid-19
    • Why Safety Loves Covid-19
    • Covid-19, Cricket and Lessons in Safety
    • The Covid-19 Lesson
    • Safety has this Covid-19 thing sorted
    • The Heart of Wisdom at Covid Time
    • How’s the Hot Desking Going Covid?
    • The Semiotics of COVID-19 and the Social Amplification of Risk
    • Working From Home Health and Safety Tips – Covid-19
    • Covid-19 and the Hierarchy of Control
  • Dr Rob Long Posts
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no HIERARCHY of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • Quotes & Slogans
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
    • When Slogans Don’t Work
    • 77 OF THE MOST CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
    • 500 BEST and WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2021
    • 167 CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Safety Acronyms
    • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
    • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
    • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
    • Safety Slogans List
    • Road Safety Slogans
    • How to write your own safety slogans
    • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
    • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
    • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
    • Safety Slogans for Work
You are here: Home / Robert Long / Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety

Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety

May 12, 2022 by Dr Rob Long 1 Comment

Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety

imageThere are many common themes we find in music and song, many about love and the soul, and many about dreaming.

The Beatles sang about sleep and dreaming on one of their best albums (Revolver) in the song ‘I’m Only Sleeping’. Dreaming is often used as a metaphor for envisioning and imagination. This also coincided with their experimentation in psychedelics, marking their most creative period.

We live in a strange world where there is an abundance of interest in sleep science, sleep dysfunction and sleep therapy but so little interest in dreaming. Yet we know that the peak of REM sleep in REM dreaming is our best sleep (https://aeon.co/essays/we-live-in-a-wake-centric-world-losing-touch-with-our-dreams ). Naiman, argues convincingly that we have lost touch with our dreaming and in scientism have turned dreaming into an annoying mechanical outcome of sleeping.

We have been indoctrinated with the mantra ‘it’s just a dream’. Similarly, we have been told that the ancients and past civilization privileging of dreaming is just old superstition or religious nonsense.

Yet, whenever people present for counselling and help, they often speak of their dreams associated with sleeping problems.

We now know that sleeping disorders are common. Some describe sleeping dysfunction at ‘epidemic levels’:

  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6473877/
  • https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.615867/full
  • https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/06/news-concerns-sleep

Unfortunately, we live in a society that is so influenced by scientism that we now believe that dreams have no meaning. Whilst the West lives in ignorance of dreaming, Indigenous Australians place dreaming at the centre of their worldview. Just like the delusion of brain-centrism we now make wake-centrism the priority for what we do with dreams and how we understand sleep. Dreams are relegated to something we ‘try to forget’ rather than something we ‘work’ on.

But before we start venturing down a discussion on the unconscious, dreaming and sleep disorders we need to be clear about our assumptions of personhood, being and anthropological assumptions. When one brings materialist and behaviourist assumptions to the topic of sleep and dreams, a brain-centric worldview dominates and so sleep disorders are narrowed down to physiological symptoms and brain-centric neuroscience.

What has this got to do with safety?

The mechanistic/behaviourist scientism worldview is attractive to safety but it doesn’t help I tackling the challenges of sleep dysfunction and the many safety and mental health spin-offs. Just look at all this brain-centric stuff that interests Safety with its full of an engineering worldview overlaid on the process of how the brain works.

When you view humans as a ‘factor in a system (https://safetyrisk.net/human-factors-is-never-about-humans/ ) why should Safety take any interest in sleep disorders or REM dreaming? Just look at the language of this stuff:

  • https://www.stratleader.net/neurosafety
  • https://www.safetydimensions.com.au/whats-the-neuroscience-behind-safe-behaviour/
  • https://prochoicesafetygear.com/ppe/blog/workplace-health-and-safety/using-neuroscience-behavioural-science-influence-safety/
  • https://www.aihs.org.au/news-and-publications/news/neuroscience-behind-how-workers-make-conscious-safety-choices
  • https://www.hasanz.org.nz/site_files/11371/upload_files/DeanneBouleswebsite.pdf?dl=1

When the brain is constructed as a computer, safety become process of reprogramming. None of this is holistic or real. The reality is all research in neuropsychology continues to understand sleep/dreaming as a mystery:

  • https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261993656_The_Neuropsychology_of_Dreaming_Studies_and_Observations_Dreaming_and_Sleep_States
  • https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/article/download/9137/pdf/9418
  • https://filosofiadaufu.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/2-3-handbook-of-embodied-cognition.pdf

Then observe the marketing of this ‘safety goop’ on brain safety where assumptions are never declared, engineering dominates undisclosed expertise and such unethical marketing presents so many silences on the wicked problem of sleep dysfunction, Mind and dreaming. I know, let’s investigate neuropsychology by asking an engineer about education and learning.

Worldviews matter and precede assumptions about REM dreaming/sleep and how one understands healthy, ethical personhood. Impaired sleep should be of central interest to the risk and safety industry, yet it is not. Naiman describes that we live in ‘a morphephobic culture’ that is, we are fearful of engaging with our dreams and afraid of the human unconscious. In the risk and safety world in its materialist delusions, any mention of sleep and REM dreaming is relegated to irrelevance and being ‘off with the fairies’. In a similar way, the risk and safety frames an understanding of human emotions as dangerous because they cannot be ‘controlled’. All of this just adds to the list of many ‘safety silences’ (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-silences-video-series/; https://safetyrisk.net/silences-in-safety/ ).

If you want to know about safety culture, don’t get distracted by all it is noisy about, listen to its silences and you will see what it doesn’t believe.

REM dreaming is associated with a host of mental and physical health concerns. Yet you won’t find any discussion in the safety world about this in reference to mental health. Yet, in all my work in the mental health sector, tackling the challenges of sleep and REM dreaming are central to understanding wellness.

It is so clear, Safety has no interest in wholeness of persons (https://safetyrisk.net/holistic-responses-to-mental-health/ ) despite the fact that lack of REM sleep is a factor in fatalities. In Safety, mental health is understood a brain-centric (https://safetyrisk.net/how-not-to-view-mental-health-and-safety/). Just have read of some of these and you will see the nature of the problem: https://safetyrisk.net/?s=Mental+health

It is strange that safety recognizes sleep disorders as a safety problem (https://www.workalert.org.au/screening-for-sleep-disorders ) even documenting its cost but as an industry there is no research interest in REM sleep and dreaming. What we see here is a behaviourist bias that recognizes the physical outcomes of something it doesn’t wish to tackle (the unconscious).

Worldview shapes ethic and method.

It is clear that Safety is afraid of things it cannot control and so it doesn’t discuss or tackle anything it deems mysterious. How would a discussion on REM dreaming possibly help with understanding mental health and safety? Just police the regulation and do your job.

Whenever I work with people who are challenged by mental health issues, I start with a conversation about sleep and dreaming. When we speak of ‘envisioning’ (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/ ) we encounter discussion of imagination, discovery and creativity. No wonder so many musicians sing about dreaming and imagine/create from their dreams. But it’s not only music, so many innovations come from dreaming (https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2018/05/04/7-innovations-you-wont-believe-came-from-dreams_a_23426199/ ).

If you want to be more innovative at work (https://www.bedguru.co.uk/9-inventions-inspired-by-dreams ) and more creative in risk and safety perhaps start by ‘working’ on your dreams.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • The Safety Trifecta and Nothing Changes - May 14, 2022
  • Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety - May 12, 2022
  • Working Out What Makes Sense in Safety - May 9, 2022
  • How to Tackle Risk You Can’t See - May 6, 2022
  • Human Factors is Never About Humans - May 4, 2022
Dr Rob Long
PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Robert Long, Unconscious Tagged With: dreaming, Sleep

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rob Long says

    May 15, 2022 at 8:48 AM

    https://neurosciencenews.com/strange-dream-learning-20574/

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Visit Count – Started Jan 2015

  • 23,989,503 Visitors

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,417 other subscribers

NEW! Free Download

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety
  • Rob Long on Working Out What Makes Sense in Safety
  • simon cassin on Working Out What Makes Sense in Safety
  • Rob Long on The Safety Trifecta and Nothing Changes
  • Aneta Parker on The Safety Trifecta and Nothing Changes
  • Rob Long on How to Tackle Risk You Can’t See
  • Andrew Thornhill on How to Tackle Risk You Can’t See
  • Anonymous on Road Safety Slogans
  • Rob Long on Study Reveals an Unexpected Side Effect of Traffic Safety Messages
  • Rob Long on Humanising Leadership in Risk, Shifting the Focus from Objects to Persons

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Featured Downloads

  • Field Activity Risk Assessment Form (2005 downloads)
  • Driving Safety (8497 downloads)
  • Zero-to-HRO-15-March-2017 (2175 downloads)
  • Manual-Handling-Checklist.doc (6497 downloads)
  • Health and Safety Risk Assessment Checklist (10618 downloads)
  • CLLR-SPoR-Unit1.pdf (1474 downloads)
  • Volunteer-Risk-Assessment-checklist.pdf (2065 downloads)
  • Safety Moments - General Collection (8286 downloads)
  • EPS Procedure (514 downloads)
  • Preventing Heat Exhaustion (17573 downloads)
  • SAFETYconnect-Flyer.pdf (896 downloads)
  • Coronavirus - Covid 19 Toolbox Talk (6996 downloads)
  • SEEK-Brisbane-91011-Nov-2016-2.pdf (1632 downloads)
  • The-air-that-I-breathe.docx (1035 downloads)
  • Covid-19 Work From Home Safety Checklist (5360 downloads)

Recent Posts

  • The Safety Trifecta and Nothing Changes
  • Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety
  • Working Out What Makes Sense in Safety
  • How to Tackle Risk You Can’t See
  • Study Reveals an Unexpected Side Effect of Traffic Safety Messages
  • Human Factors is Never About Humans
  • Where to Start in Humanising Leadership in Risk
  • Humanising Leadership in Risk, Shifting the Focus from Objects to Persons
  • Safety Silences – Video Series
  • What is the Human Body for in Safety?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?

Footer

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,417 other subscribers

AUTHORS

  • Alan Quilley
    • Heinrich–Industrial Accident Prevention
    • The Problem With ZERO Goals and Results
  • Bernard Corden
    • After the goldrush
    • The Internationale
  • Bill Sims
    • Employee Engagement: Chocolate, Vanilla, or Strawberry?
    • Injury Hiding-How do you stop it?
  • Craig Clancy
    • Task Based vs Activity Based Safe Work Method Statements
    • Safety And Tender Submissions
  • Daniel Kirk
    • It’s easy being wise after the event.
    • A Positive Safety Story
  • Dave Whitefield
    • Safety is about…
    • Safety and Compliance
  • Dennis Millard
    • Are You Risk Intelligent?
    • Honey they get me! They get me at work!
  • Drewie
    • Downturn Doin’ Your Head In? Let’s Chat….
    • How was your break?
  • Gabrielle Carlton
    • All Care and No Care!
    • You Are Not Alone!
  • George Robotham
    • How to Give an Unforgettable Safety Presentation
    • How To Write a Safety Report
  • Goran Prvulovic
    • Safety Manager – an Ultimate Scapegoat
    • HSE Performance – Back to Basics
  • James Ellis
    • Psychological Core Stability for Wellbeing in Workers Comp
    • In search of plan B in workers’ recovery
  • James Parkinson
    • To laugh or not to laugh
    • People and Safety
  • John Toomey
    • In it for The Long Haul – Making the most of the FIFO Lifestyle
    • Who is Responsible for This?
  • Karl Cameron
    • Abby Normal Safety
    • The Right Thing
  • Ken Roberts
    • Safety Legislation Is Our Biggest Accident?
    • HSE Trip Down Memory Lane
  • Mark Perrett
    • Psychology of Persuasion: Top 5 influencing skills for getting what you want
  • Mark Taylor
    • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
    • Enculturing Safety
  • Max Geyer
    • WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture
    • Due Diligence Is Not Just Ticking Boxes!
  • Matt Thorne
    • Safety Culture–Hudson’s Model
    • Culture – Edgar Schein
  • Peter Ribbe
    • Is there “Common Sense” in safety?
    • Who wants to be a safety professional?
  • Phil LaDuke
    • Professional Conferences Are A Sleazy Con
    • Hey Idiots, You’re Worried About the Wrong Things
  • Admin
    • Study Reveals an Unexpected Side Effect of Traffic Safety Messages
    • Humanising Leadership in Risk, Shifting the Focus from Objects to Persons
  • Dr Rob Long
    • The Safety Trifecta and Nothing Changes
    • Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety
  • Rob Sams
    • The Learning (and unlearning) that Revealed my Vocation
    • I’m just not that into safety anymore
  • Barry Spud
    • Things To Consider When Developing And Designing Your Company SWMS
    • Bad Safety Photos
  • Sheri Suckling
    • How Can I Get the Boss to Listen?
  • Simon Cassin
    • Safety values, ideas, behaviours and clothes
  • Safety Nerd
    • The Block isn’t portraying safety as it should be
    • Toolbox Talk Show–PPE
  • Wynand Serfontein
    • Why The Problem With Learning Is Unlearning
    • I DON’T KNOW
  • Zoe Koskinas
    • Why is fallibility so challenging in the workplace?

Most commented on

Forecasting Safety

The Banned Objects Index – A New Development in Safety Culture

The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser

Dumbs for Safety

The Real Barriers to Safety

Safety as Faith Healing

Who Said We Don’t Need Systems?

Why Safety Controls Don’t Always Work

How to use signs, symbols and text effectively in communicating about risk

Safety Should NOT Be About Safety

FEATURED POSTS

What is Psychosocial Safety

Safe Work Australia Continues to Perpetuate Safety Mythology

Safety for Luddites

The Deficit Focus and Safety Balance

And the Enemy of Safety is? … Humans!

Investigations and Power

The Challenge of Social Sensemaking in Risk

Is Safety the Empire of Non-Sense?

Not Much Like Safety…

‘Man Up’ Safety

It’s the –ism That Matters

The Soul of Mental Health

Social Psychology of Risk Post-Grad Pics

The Curse of Behaviourism

Risk and Safety Starts with Being?

A Semiotic Map for Safety

Disrupting the Methodology in Safety?

There is Nothing more Imaginative We can Do in Safety

Regulation Madness

Defining Safety

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,417 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

 

How To Make Your Own Hand Sanitizer

 

 

How to Make your own Covid-19 Face Mask

 

Covid-19 Returning To Work Safety, Transitioning, Start Up And Re Entry Plans

 

How’s the Hot Desking Going Covid?

imageOne of the benefits of the Covid-19 epidemic is a total rethink about how we live and work (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-28/coronavirus-could-reshape-how-australians-work-forever/12097124 ).

Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging

One of the fascinating things about the Coronavirus pandemic is watching Safety morph into epidemiology expertise. I would like a dollar for every flyer, presentation, podcast, powerpoint, checklist template, toolbox talk and poster set that had jumped into my inbox… Read the rest

The Stress of Stasis

One of the challenging things about the Coronavirus crisis is stasis. For those without work and confined to home, for those in self-isolation, it’s like life is frozen in time. ‘Stay at home’ is the mantra. The trouble is, in… Read the rest

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.